The Voices of Hockey by Kirk McKnight

Author:Kirk McKnight [McKnight, Kirk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2017-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

A Familiar Face Raising the Cup

Having been born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Hall of Fame center Mark Messier played for his hometown Oilers alongside Glenn Anderson, Grant Fuhr, Randy Gregg, Charlie Huddy, Jari Kurri, and Kevin Lowe during the team’s run of five Stanley Cups in a seven-year period. Also included in four of those cups is the “Great One” Wayne Gretzky, who was picked up by the Kings before the 1988–1989 season and missed the parade in June 1990. Two seasons later, Messier, too, would leave the “nest” and head to the Big Apple, where he would give Ranger fans the drink for which they had been thirsting for more than half a century.

With an impressive 112 regular-season points, Messier, along with the offense and defense of Sergei Zubov and a supporting cast of Adam Graves, Brian Leetch, the notorious enforcement of Joe Kocur, the leadership of team-builder Mike Keenan, and the superb goaltending of Mike Richter, blew through the first two rounds of the playoffs, setting up a Conference Finals showdown with their across-the-Hudson neighbor, the New Jersey Devils. Down 3–2 in the series, team captain Messier guaranteed Ranger fans a game six victory. If there ever was a motivational poster for the saying “As good as his word,” it could certainly display Mark Messier, who not only scored a hat trick but assisted on the team’s only other goal in the 4–2 win over the Devils. The Rangers forced a game seven that would require two overtimes to decide who would represent the east against the Vancouver Canucks. His second most memorable game as a broadcaster, Rosen describes the Rangers’ last stop before the Cup Final:

There were the Rangers playing a tremendously intense series with the Devils, who were the up-and-coming team. The Rangers were the team that had the star power and were the favorites, but they were down 3–2 in the series. They came back and won game six in dramatic fashion at New Jersey and then went back to MSG for game seven. The Rangers were up 1–0, and the Devils tied the game with 7.7 seconds remaining in regulation. The game went to overtime and then to double overtime. The agony, the stress, the tension, the nervousness was beyond belief. Here they were—this close—to winning and going to the Stanley Cup Final, and yet they were a fraction of an inch away from not getting there. But they won it on the great goal by Stefan Matteau and advanced to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1979. To that point, that was the best game that I had been ever involved with.

Though not yet in the broadcast booth—nor patrolling the ice on which he had played with the team for 11 seasons as a defenseman—Rangers radio play-by-play voice Dave Maloney shares his game seven experience at The Garden, saying, “I was actually at game seven. Believe it or not, I was able to score eight tickets. I took my oldest son, three of his buddies, and their dads.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.